Alexandru Timotin, Florin Teodor Tãnãsescu * Structures for a Thesaurus of Technical Terminology



For each operating language, a specific term file of that language is associated to the set of concepts. Each concept is associated to a single recommended term - called its descriptor - and possibly to one or more acceptable synonyms, nonrecommended terms, abbreviations etc. This file contains the terminological fund of the respective language, to which a file of references of terms to their sources is added, that specifies where and in which form the considered term appears in the text-source. A file of titles of the source documents is associated, in the considered language, to the language-independent file of sources. If possible and requested, a file of definitions can be added to the language-dependent set of files.



3. Proposed semantic structures

3.1. Taxonomic structure

The set of all concepts has to be divided, from a pragmatic point of view, in several domains of applications, the first being the one of common and fundamental concepts. Each domain is divided in sub-domains. The corresponding feature of a concept will be hereafter referred to as its “affiliation”. The concepts can be also classified by their semantic “ type” or by their “category” (e.g. their rank in the thesaurus structure). These properties are indicated in the concept file by some specific symbols (one or two characters).

3.1.1. The affiliation

This feature involves: the main domain of affiliation; a sub-domain of the main domain; more (1...4) secondary domains of affiliation. A list of domains (symbol DO, indicated by two figures, see Annex 2) and, for each domain, a list of sub-domains (symbol SD, also indicated by two figures) are to be previously outlined.

This preliminary classification is independent of other structures and makes possible not only the organization of experts’ work (according to their competence), but the decomposition in sub-thesaurus that can be edited separately. When such a partial thesaurus, or a dictionary (extracted from the thesaurus data bank), has to be edited for a special group of domains, all the concepts belonging to these domains, as main domain or secondary one, will be selected. Should a priority tree-like structure of concepts be built, only the main domain of a concept and its sub-domain are relevant.

3.1.2. The type

The concept type, designated in the concept file by a literal symbol, is to be selected from an adhoc concept classification by some logical or factual criteria (Table 1). Examples:

Symbol Technical entities Symbol Nontechnical entities
M material G general, abstract entity
C component F natural phenomenon, entity
P device/ machine/ equipment/ system S social/ economic entity, convention, rule
A action, elementary operation R other types
T technical activity, transformation, process Properties (features) of any kind
E measuring and test technique Q quality, attribute, quantity, relation

The types are useful for the semantic analysis and because some important hierarchical relations between concepts (see §3.2.) are not type-free. Taking into account the IEC Thesaurus, the most frequent types are Q (33%), P (27%), T (13.5%), C (9%). The choice of further types seems to be rather tiresome than relevant.

3.1.3. The category

The concept category, designated in the concept file by a literal symbol, indicates first of all the concept rank in the thesaurus priority ordering structure. Examples:

Symbol Concept category
X Domain concept (whose descriptor, the title of a domain, is written with a capital initial)
Y Sub-domain concept (whose descriptor, the title of a sub-domain, is written with a capital initial)
Z Zone (the top concept of a semantic field, see §4.3.2)
D Ordinary concept
K Classification criterion (typed in a semantic vicinity before a set of similar relations)
C Comment (typed in a semantic vicinity after a set of similar relations)

The last two categories are some special features of the hierarchical relations, that may appear in the edited forms of the semantic vicinity of a concept, before or after a set of similar relations. This allows the grouping of similar (from the same point of view) descendant relations in a semantic vicinity.

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